Lindsey Jordan started Snail Mail when she was in high school and has since been touring nationally and internationally. The Baltimore-based trio has been making a big splash in indie rock, especially over the past year. Snail Mail took the second performance slot of the evening. The band’s songs, in just three or four minutes, often switched from gentle and soft verses to hard, energetic choruses, creating a dynamic set. Its singer, Hannah Rainey, is originally from Columbia, and told the crowd before the band played its song “Walk Me Home” that the song was written about the time she lived here and walked everywhere since she didn’t have a car. Louis-based band Shady Bug began the evening. The three bands provided a variety of styles while still creating a cohesive show overall. Snail Mail, Shady Bug and It’s Me: Ross took the stage at Cafe Berlin last Friday for a show presented by CoMo Girls Rock!. They are, in a word, thoughtful.Snail Mail brings emotion and charm to Cafe Berlin They’re far from meticulous, but they don’t need to be. While its melodies sound far from slaved over, they succeed as a result of their pacing, as though they've been pieced together during a drive home from work. Snail Mail make music to fall asleep at the wheel to – to reaffirm one’s life to – through daydreams and isolation. More than any wisdom, it’s a pointed lack of certainty that makes Habit as engaging as it is. I do think that Habit shows a remarkable amount of restraint for all its naivety – a naivety that I think is showcased with a certain level of intentionality, one for the sake of ubiquity and communal catharsis. Perhaps I am being a tad harsh on the article. Think Frances Quinlan with less a sense of control, perhaps less of a care – a jubilance that, more than it undercuts the record's immersion, makes it all the more charming, emboldening an attractive sprightliness made human via no less a sense of confusion and yearning. Then again, to describe them as such do the vocals little justice: more than she wails, Jordan seems to throw her voice about. A simple but effective setup of guitars and drums lays lazy foundation for Jordan’s juvenile wails, undoubtedly the project’s centrepiece. The music, as a result, sounds as contemplative as it does lethargic, smouldering what is typical indie rock fanfare under a layer of shoegaze influence and subtle, though unwitting pop sensibility. At one point, Jordan begs of herself, “Is this who you are?” An adolescent quandary indeed (in delivery only, not sentiment), though it nevertheless highlights what is one of the band’s greatest strengths: an ability to traverse common threads of mid-day malaise and suburban ennui with an at once pensive, youthful swagger. While opener ‘Thinning’ introduces something altogether dancier in sound than what is present on the remainder of the EP, its lyrics evoke images of loss and being lost. In tone, Habit resembles more a question than answer. That, in its haste, overlooks the potential ubiquity of Lindsey’s youthful ramblings.
Whether or not the “wisest” label rings true, however – and I don’t mean to discredit the article, nor its accompanying interview (in truth, both fantastic pieces) – it strikes me as one given with little thought.
(A hiatus which, to be fair, mightn’t have been the worst idea, as the band grew in both sound and status.) In her interview, Jordan spoke pensively and with great confidence on broad themes of confusion and loss, crises of identity inextricable from the realities of growing up – ones since resolved for the songwriter herself, though which are thoughtfully recreated on the band's sophomore release.
17 at the time, the Snail Mail frontwoman had been taking time off school to promote and tour the Baltimore trio’s Habit EP. Review Summary: Echoing through bedroom wallsĮarly last year, Pitchfork’s Jenn Pelly dubbed Lindsey Jordan “Wisest Teenage Indie Rocker” that the publication knew.